Nero and Miguel are two brothers who never met but are forced into an existential journey to the funeral of their father, whom they never knew. Their fantastical tale pays tribute to memories of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting For Godot, and their humorous romp through the countryside of Spain bows to the opposites-attract camaraderie of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Along their voyage, they meet up with a cast of characters who act as guideposts in the brothers' journey to the meaning of life. The two men befriend a narcoleptic man looking for acceptance, a beautiful woman who throws watermelons, Nero's dream girl in a bed of sunflowers, and the ghost of their father who expounds on the secrets to enjoying life. For The Soul of Flies, Jonathan Cenzual Burley directed and shot his own script using only one camera, masterfully balancing the incredible scenery with this amusing and entertaining story about life's passage and the strangers we depend on along the way. - Cleveland International Film Festival 2012

Margot (Michelle Williams) and Lou (Seth Rogen) are a happily married couple living a quiet, comfortable existence. Their marriage is filled with love, companionship, and humor, but after years of being together, they have settled for contentment and security over excitement. Their life is thrown out of order when Margot falls in love with a handsome and charismatic neighbor (Luke Kirby), and she is forced to choose between the comfort of the familiar and the exhilaration of the unknown. - Tribeca Film Festival 2012

It’s 1962. An uptight middle-class couple – Fabrice Luchini and Sandrine Kiberlain – are barely aware that the servants’ quarters on an upper floor of their Paris apartment building are overflowing with refugees from Franco’s Spain: the sisters and aunts and mothers and cousins of the legal occupant (Carmen Maura). After they hire one of them, the beautiful, mysterious, quietly challenging Maria, to be their housemaid, they are gradually made aware of their own unintentional insensitivity and are drawn out of their tired routines. Kiberlain’s touching remoteness from the infectious gusto of the tenants brings a little edge to the film’s comic fantasy, while Luchini has a ball as the stuffy fusspot rescued from himself by the chance to play godfather to a houseful of hot-blooded Spanish country girls. - New Zealand International Film Festival 2011

In Chile’s Atacama Desert, 3,000 meters above sea level, astronomers from around the world take advantage of a sky so clear it allows them to see to the very boundaries of the known universe. Meanwhile, at the foot of the observatory, women dig through the soil in search of the “disappeared” victims of Pinochet’s regime, their remains mummified by the hot, dry climate. In Nostalgia for the Light, director Patricio Guzmán once again exhumes Chile’s past, contrasting those looking out toward the stars with those sifting through the reminders of a bloody past. – Nicholas Davies / Abu Dhabi Film Festival 2011

Winner - Best Documentary at European Film Awards, 2010Winner - Best Documentary, International Documentary Association 2011Winner - Best Documentary, Toronto Film Critics Association

With the return of their friend Ahmad from Germany, a group of old college pals (two married couples and a brother and sister, along with three young kids) decide to reunite for a weekend outing by the Caspian Sea. The fun starts right away as they quickly catch on to the plan of lively Sepideh, who has brought along Elly, her daughter's kindergarten teacher, in hopes of setting her up with recently divorced Ahmad. But seemingly trivial lies, which start accumulating from the moment the group arrives at the seashore, suddenly swing round and come back full force when Elly disappears in a troubling incident. - Tribeca Film Festival

Summer in the GDR in 1980. Barbara, a doctor, has submitted an application to emigrate to the West. She is punished by being posted away from the capital to a hospital in a small town. Jörg, her lover in the West, is busy planning her escape via the Baltic Sea. It’s a waiting game for Barbara. Her new flat, the neighbours, summer and the countryside no longer hold any charms for her. Although she is attentive to her young patients in the department for paediatric surgery under her new boss, André, she is deliberately cool to her colleagues. Her life, she thinks, will begin later.

André confuses her. First there’s his unshakable faith in her professional abilities, then there’s way he cares, and his winning smile. What makes him cover up for her when she helps Stella, a young runaway? Is he spying on her? Is he in love? Barbara begins to lose her grip on herself, her plans and her heart. The day of her planned escape approaches. After Gespenster (2005) and Yella (2007) this marks Christian Petzold’s third outing in the Berlinale’s Competition programme. His new work once again centres on a woman who seems to drift through life like a phantom. Hers is a life in which the fear of surveillance seems to be firmly embedded in all interpersonal relationships. - Berlin Film Festival 2012